About OSGeo-Live

OSGeo Live provides bootable ISO-Images and Virtual Machines which allow users to try out fully-operational versions of popular Free Geospatial Software without the need to install a thing.

We do this in large part by maintaining automated build scripts which collect many OSGeo programs and sample data-sets together, and then combine them to form the Live disc or VM itself. By tweaking these scripts, users are free to make their own custom distributions, for example localized in their own language and with local map data.

Key Links

Quick Start

How to add a project to OSGeoLive

Including OSGeo-Live at your event

OSGeo Live provides a DVD, USB and a Virtual Machine which allow users to try out fully-operational versions of popular Free Geospatial Software without the need to install a thing. It also includes documentation and a comprehensive presentation.

This is the process to follow if you wish to make use of OSGeo-Live at your conference, workshop or similar event.

Tell Us

Add your event to our Live GIS History page and tell us how you would like to use OSGeo-Live on our email list (or email Cameron Shorter directly). Hearing how OSGeo-Live is used motivates us to keep going, and we plan releases around upcoming events.

Presentation

Conference attendees appreciate the OSGeo-Live Lightning Overview, which explains the breadth of OSGeo software, abstract here. It is often presented by one of the conference organisors, or keynote speakers. You may wish to find a suitable speaker from the OSGeo Advocate list. The presentation may be given as is, or modified to align with time constraints, presenter's interest, or conference focus. (For prior variants, see Live GIS Presentation.)

Handing out DVDs or USBs

OSGeo-Live DVDs and/or USBs are often handed out to all conference delegates, or a smaller number handed out from an OSGeo booth. DVDs are cheaper (around $2 per copy), but USBs provide a better experience as they are faster to boot up and run. You will need to:

Work out how to pay for the USBs/DVDs. Usually the price is factored into event budgets. This means you will require commitment from the event Organisors. However you may find an external sponsor, or for smaller print runs, you might find volunteers to print from their computers.

Source a local printer, preferably local. Printers typically require 2 weeks to do the print run, although they often will turn around faster if you pay more money.

Printing DVDs: The printer will require an ISO image, and artwork for the DVD face and DVD sleeve. You may make use of existing artwork or create your own.

Printing USBs: A 4 Gig USB is required for osgeo-live-mini (8 Gig if you wish the full image with windows and mac installers). The process for installing USBs is described here. Note that it is important to ask the printer if they can create bootable USBs. (We have found that many printers are not familiar with the process). It is prudent to check the first USB that is printed before printing the rest. You can also print a logo on the USB.

Workshops

For workshops, we recommend using OSGeo-Live from a Virtual Machine or from a USB. Note that some computers can't boot from a USB. OSGeo-Live on a DVD is slow and as such is not recommended for workshops. However it is wise to have a few spare DVDs in case one of your computers can't boot from the USB. Note that OSGeo-Live we have heard some issues when running on Apple Macs, so if using Macs, please test first.

Poster

We have a Poster which is useful for hanging on a wall of a conference booth.

Build Process

Want to help?

We love volunteers, and would love to hear from you if you would like to help out. Best place to start is to introduce yourself on our email list, maybe mention how you'd like to get involved. Here are some ideas about things that you might want to help with:

Downloads

Issue Tracker

Our issue tracker is hosted at OSGeo's Trac system, and you will need to create an OSGeo UserId before you can login and edit issues. To distinguish the LiveDVD project from other OSGeo projects, use the following conventions:

Git migration

Since Git is a distributed versioning system, it is very convenient for each developer/contributor to have a personal public copy of the "official" repository (also known as fork).

Web hosting services like GitLab or GitHub provide this option if you visit the main code repository and press the button "Fork". This way the developer can make changes to a personal isolated repository. Then one can ask the rest of the developers to review the code and merge accordingly through a "pull request".

In order to be able to get and send changes to your public repository, you need to link your local copy to your public copy. This is done automatically for you when you "git clone". The repository that you cloned from has the alias "origin".

In order to be able to get changes that others do to the main repository, you need to manually link to that using:

On the git world, you don't need commit access to the main repository in order to contribute. You just work on your own fork and ask maintainers to merge your code through "pull requests". Before you contribute to the project for the first time, you will need to confirm that you will comply with our license guidelines. Write something like:

"Hi all, I'd like to contribute XXX to OSGeo-Live. I confirm that my contributions to OSGeo-Live will be compatible with the OSGeo-Live license guidelines at the time of contribution."

The licenses used for the OSGeo-Live build scripts and documentation are:

# Coders and creators of new content: edit contributors.csv
# please add your Name, Email, Country and Osgeo_id to the list, separated by comma
# - Order alphabetical by first name,
# - remove punctuation from email addresses to stop harvesting for junk mail
# optionally check to see what has changed.
git diff contributors.csv
# add the changes into stage area
git add contributors.csv

At this point you can let others know that you have some changes that you want to merge, so you can use the button "Pull Request" on GitLab or GitHub. Or you can continue until you feel ready to share your code :)

# Translators: edit translators.csv
# same as above, but the order of columns is:
# Language, i18n code, Name, Country, Email, Osgeo_id
# - Order alphabetically by language, then by first name
# - remove punctuation from email addresses to stop harvesting for junk mail

To get commit access, you need to create yourself an osgeo user id, then join our email list and ask to be given access to subversion. In this email, you will also need to confirm that you will comply with our license guidelines. Write something like:

"Hi all, I'd like to contribute XXX to OSGeo-Live. Could I please get access to subversion. My osgeo-user id is: YYYY.

I confirm that my contributions to OSGeo-Live will be compatible with the OSGeo-Live license guidelines at the time of contribution."

The licenses used for the OSGeo-Live build scripts and documentation are:

# Coders and creators of new content: edit contributors.csv
# please add your Name, Email, Country and Osgeo_id to the list, separated by comma
# - Order alphabetical by first name,
# - remove punctuation from email addresses to stop harvesting for junk mail
# optionally check to see what has changed.
svn diff contributors.csv
# check the file back into subversion
svn commit contributors.csv

# Translators: edit translators.csv
# same as above, but the order of columns is:
# Language, i18n code, Name, Country, Email, Osgeo_id
# - Order alphabetically by language, then by first name
# - remove punctuation from email addresses to stop harvesting for junk mail

Google Summer of Code

OSGeo Incubation

Use Cases

There are multiple use cases for this product:

Demo DVD that can be handed out at conferences.This will contain a wide variety of applications, preconfigured with some sample data and containing introductory tutorials. It should be able to function completely offline, at least within the scope of the tutorials, and should provide an introduction to many products. This is very much a Live DVD, and as such should be conservative with regards to size (it will be run from RAM).

Education DVDThis seems to be a more involved version than the Demo DVD, including more involved material, including train-the-trainer style material. This is targeted at those who will be teaching others, be it in workshops or university classes/labs. My expectation (mleslie: feel free to correct me) is that this is more likely to be installed on machines and used as a teaching resource, as opposed to a toy to play with, as with the Demo DVD. This will require material developed through the.

Workstation Install DVD This need was seen in Cape Town, where the bandwidth seems to be a very limiting factor. Using the DVD to install either a complete OS, a set of packages to an existing Linux, or Windows installers completely offline is of great value in the developing world. Would it be of greater value to lose the Edu or demo material and put in complete application documentation?

Links to related projects

DebianGIS. We encourage projects to package applications into Debian, which in turn is incorporated into Ubuntu.